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This weeks edition of the Equestrian Inquirer has arrived! Check it out at the new Deviant Art page, or after the break.

Issue #13

OH GREAT, RAINBOW DASH NOW HAS A PET THAT’S BASICALLY A ROCK

SHE CAN DROP ON EVERYPONY

By Joe Stevens

In what should have been an obvious problem from the very start, Rainbow Dash has recently taken an affinity to a tenacious tortoise named Tank and has already racked up more property damage than the last time Pinkie Pie remembered she liked espresso. The problems began almost immediately after Tank came into Rainbow’s graces. Instead of her usual habits of dropping rocks, lightning bolts, hamsters, and various other unguided projectiles on the unknowing inhabitants of Ponyville, Rainbow now has access to a fully reusable, fully willing, fully guidable and fully hurts-a-lot-when-it-hits-you-in-the-head-able tortoise! Come on, ponies, are we the only ones who figured this would be a problem!

Does anypony care about things that actually happen in Ponyville! I mean, I’m trying to maintain a semblance of journalistic neutrality here but in the past few weeks we’ve had to replace our roof half a dozen times due to Rainbow dropping things on it and now we have to worry about something that can actually latch on to Freddy’s face when it collides with him at forty miles an hour! Actually, that was kinda funny, but that’s beside the point.

It seems that instead of cautioning against the potential safety hazards and us losing our homeowners insurance, residents of Ponyville were applauding Rainbow’s decision to befriend a hazardous projectile. Nopony apparently read into Rainbow’s intentions when she named it after a military vehicle known for being able to cause massive destruction without suffering any damage. And our Unreliable Sources just confirmed that Tank has been outfitted with a gyroscopic helicopter. Rainbow might as well have named the thing Guided Missile and just cut out the subtlety!

“I think it’s funny,” quoted Pinkie Pie, who was on a recent caffeine binge and had no idea what she was talking about.

“It is cause for concern,” quoted Twilight Sparkle, friend of Rainbow Dash, “Thankfully the Treebrary can withstand severe impact to anything but the windows. But now that Rainbow Dash can throw something at the windows and have it guided toward that target, I’m beginning to regret that she didn’t just pick the hummingbird as her pet. I’m sure one of those would cause much less damage when thrown against my window.”

We are already retrofitting the EI main offices with steel beams across the roof and windows and we’ve brought our clam cannon out of storage for use as an anti-turtle deflection device. (don’t ask how we got the clam cannon, it’s a long story) Bring it on, Tank and Rainbow!

SWEETIE BELLE MAY IN FACT BE A THESAURUS

By Freddy Baxter

Pretty sure the Unreliable Sources screwed up on this one but we’ll run with it anyway. Responding to recent allegations that she is a dictionary, Ponyville resident Sweetie Belle has submitted herself to scientific testing at the Equestria Inquirer Labs. Unfortunately, our labs were conducting high-priority taco-based research at the time and could not spare the resources to do a proper investigation. The only pony available to investigate Sweetie Belle’s not-dictionary-ness, since Twilight was fixing the windows on the Treebrary from another Tank attack, was visiting professor of the Canterlot University, Dr. Philosor Aptor. Dr. Aptor had this to say, “Our metaphysical nature allows us to be anything our perceptions will us to be.” “Can I call her a thesaurus then?” Scootaloo, friend to Sweetie Belle, inquired. To which the doctor, who was late for an appointment with the EI labs taco researchers, responded, “Sure.” Scootaloo’s assertion has yet to be challenged by any creditable authority as they’re all still trying to make tacos, so until resources can be spared it has become official that Sweetie Belle is not in fact a dictionary, but a thesaurus.

TWILIGHT’S “SQUARE-ROOT” DANCE ENDS IN PREDICTABLE TRAGEDY

Dozens of sprained ankles, boo-boos, and other minor to major injuries were reported as Ponyville resident Twilight Sparkle attempted to host a square-root dance. Hearing about Applejack’s family’s love of hosting an annual square dance event at Sweet Apple Acres, Twilight apparently missed the point entirely of dancing and thought she was being clever with her mathematical title.

The sheer volume of hurt ponies and confused dancers attempting to do Celestia knows what to dance in a square root has caused Ponyville’s mayor to ban any dance event revolving around mathematical puns. This includes Spike’s Algebreak Dance party and the upcoming LM=f(AO) concert. Pinkie Pie’s “Imaginary Numbers” party will be allowed as it resides mostly in Pinkie’s head and the numbers are always well-mannered and respectable.

Gumshoe’s Corner

EI Muckraker Section

PONIES RALLY AGAINST ANTI-PIRACY LAWS

By Gumshoe

In a controversy that has united many detractors of the Celestian administration, ponies from Manehattan to Apploosa have added their voices to the opponents of Princess Celestia’s new anti-piracy laws. The law, known as SODA, or Stop Offensive Dragons Act, is designed to prevent the unlicensed distribution of copyrighted material through the use of a dragon’s ability to magically teleport items to other users using a fiery roar, also known as firemail or “roarenting.” “This law will stop the flow of revenue to rogue dragons and ensure that Equestrian-made material earns money for the Equestrians who made it,” quoted Equestrian Internal Affairs correspondent Mocki Ahvelee. However, opponents say that the bill infringes on the rights of a dragon’s free speech. The law, as stated, would require all dragons to be licensed with the internal affairs office, state the recipients and sources of sent items, and to wear an electronic shock collar linked to a monitoring police pony at all times. If a dragon roarents illegally, they will be shocked with twenty thousand volts until they’re spent of their fire and turn a nice crispy black color and start listing to one side, a process known as “black-listing.” They will also not be allowed to roarent pianos anymore. While the government insists this is to protect the integrity of the privilege of firemail, most ponies seem to think that wearing a shock collar is very prohibitive to daily life, especially for water dragons. The anonymous dragons known as Dragonymous, vocal opponents of such anti-roarenting laws, have pledged a firemail-based attack that they claim will end the bill’s approval. Apparently, Dragonymous will roarent the lyrics and recorded music of a certain Buck Astley to Princess Celestia on an hourly basis, specifically the song “Never Gonna Give You Buck,” until SODA is stopped. This attack is known as “Buck Rolling” and Dragonymous is confident that no pony can withstand the lyrics for long. Unfortunately, this is exactly the kind of thing SODA is intending to stop, so it’s not exactly helping.

FREELANCE SECTION

Stories Written By You!

PRINCESS LUNA ATTEMPTS TO SET RECORD STRAIGHT ON “NINJA PONIES”

By Andrew J. Talon

In a press conference today, Princess Luna, the former Nightmare Moon, officially declared all rumors of ninja ponies being employed by the Equestrian government for covert operations to be outright falsehoods, or at the very least wildly exaggerated.

“It is the policy of this government to not employ ninja ponies,” Luna said. “Tried and true methods of intelligence gathering are the mainstay of our foreign policy, such as various things I am not at liberty to say.”

When asked to elaborate, Princess Luna repeated her earlier assertion that she could not state those methods for fear of jeopardizing various intelligence operations ongoing at the moment.

“In fact, these intelligence methods are so secret I do not even tell myself,” Princess Luna continued, “What kind of intelligence operation would it be if I let somepony like me know anything about what I am doing? I cannot allow myself to have any clue about what I am actually doing-That is how dedicated I am to my job.”

It was at this point a pony dressed in ninja-like clothing appeared in a puff of smoke, and gave Princess Luna a scroll. Taking the scroll, Princess Luna quickly read it before nodding and looking back out to the members of the press before announcing she had to depart.

“She wears this for her health. She doesn’t want to get sunburned,” Luna said, after a look at the ninja pony.

“And the sword?” demanded another reporter.

“It’s all part of her fashion, something new, I really don’t get it. But then again I have been locked in the moon for a thousand years so what do I know about fashion?” the Princess admitted with a shrug.

Her hoofmaiden then vanished in a puff of smoke, and Princess Luna smiled at the assembled reporters.

“If that is all, mares and gentleponies, I must be off. I sincerely hope I have cleared up any misconceptions about this ninja pony issue... Whatever “ninja ponies” actually are.”

With that the Princess departed, leaving a very bemused press corps behind.

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INQUIRER WEBSITE?

Hey loyal readers, a lot of you have been wondering if the Inquirer will have its own dedicated website. We absolutely love the enthusiasm you’ve given for this silly thing and that you want to see our own website! However, we are no good at URL or website design so if we did something it would be very poor and probably make Joe pull his hair out in frustration. Frankly, we’re writers and reporters, not web designers. However, if somebrony out there is willing to design and run a website, we’d be happy to make it into a joint effort, with Joe providing written material and a designer handling the technical aspects. Simply email Joe at thenewjoestevens@gmail.com if you’re interested in seeing or working with an Inquirer website. We’ll provide details. And coffee. Thanks for reading, folks! To submit freelance to the Equestria Inquirer, email Joe Stevens at thenewjoestevens@gmail.com. Follow the EI on Twitter at @JoeStevensInc, http://twitter.com/#!/JoeStevensInc. Join us next week for Issue #14!